Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:
> In my case both Mathematica 5.2 and 6.0 give exactly the same answer
> for this limit (provided you make the necessary assumptions). So this
> leaves two possibilities.
>
> One is that you have a different version of Mathematica than me. That
> would explain the fact that our experiences are exactly the opposite:
> I find version 6.0 a giant improvement over 5.2 and I find its
> documentation center almost exactly what I have always wanted.
> However, it seems to me highly unlikely that our versions of
> Mathematica 6.0 are different. In which case the only other
> explanation is that for your performance as a debugger you deserve a
> substantial pay cut.
>
> Andrzej Kozlowski
>
>
> On 20 Jun 2007, at 18:41, jrc wrote:
>
>> With my recent experience with the inability of v6 to
>> find a simple limit (easily found with 5.2 and, incidentally,
>> with another system), and reading over the confusion in the posts
>> here recently, I've decided to do any serious analysis with
>> v5.2 instead of v6.0.
>>
>> This seems to be another typical case of *.0 versions full
>> of buggy new ideas with incomplete development. The worst
>> part is the hopelessly misconstructed and unexplained new
>> 'documentation center'. Whatever improvements there are in
>> v6.0 are so incompletely developed, and poorly explained
>> (if at all) as to not be worth the upgrade.
>>
>> Hopefully Wolfram is paying attention, and I would guess
>> that we are the primary debuggers. I, for one, would like
>> a pay increase.
>>
>> jrc
>>
>
>
Andrzej, I don't think those comments are fair. The fact is that people
build large and complex systems using Mathematica. You don't need many
tiny changes in the behaviour of Mathematica to create havoc for
developers. The effort to reduce a problem to something that can be
presented here can be substantial and nerves can become frayed!
I myself have spent considerable time recoding certain plots that worked
fine at 5.2, but have become unbearably slow in 6.0. If they had been
slow at 5.2, I would have accepted that with a shrug and recoded them
accordingly, but it is the change that can be very disruptive.
I am not saying I agree with JRC, but clearly there are changes and new
bugs with 6.0, and some people's code is inevitably hit harder than
others on a more or less random basis!
David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk